 |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
This FINAL draft dated 5/4/1981 by secretary Charlene Rogers.
Animation by John Musker, Glen Keane, Darrell van Citters, Jerry Rees, Cliff Nordberg, Lorna Pomeroy (Cook), Gary Goldman, Don Bluth, Ed Gombert, Chuck Harvey, Dick Lucas, Randy Cartwright and Dale Oliver.
Animators Cliff Nordberg and Dick Lucas, of course, go way back, as does Dale Oliver, though he was Frank Thomas' assistant for many, many years. I recall the time in 1984 when Frank and Ollie visited Holland and my friend Rob Stevenhagen and I drove them all over, including to the WWII museum in Arnhem that Frank really wanted to see as there was a large drawing of Dale's hanging there. Frank recalled Dale's way of saying "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it..." He also recalled the times Dale fell asleep at his table, only to wake up with peg marks on his forehead.
In this sequence it seems that scenes 101 to 128 were added after scenes 1 to 99 were assigned. The older animators are all assigned scenes from this latter part. Dinky and Boomer are the obvious comedy casting for Cliff Nordberg. Don Bluth and Gary Goldman's animation is very... Don and Gary-like. Clearly based on live-action, and no doubt they had their say with regards to the shapes within the drawing of the widow. I so recall the method and those shapes when animating on Troll in Central Park.
I will not go into the politics of the time - the fact that with all the animation by Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, John and Lorna Pomeroy, Linda Miller, Emily Jiuliano and Heidi Guedel, they were not credited on the film as they had left the studio on September 13, 1979 (Wikipedia mentions that "Though Bluth and his team had animated substantial scenes, they asked not to receive screen credit."), leaving a big void (production-wise) that some people even now consider them as "traitors." Here we will just objectively see who was credited for which scenes...
Please send your comments and additions! No better time than the present to learn as much as we can about the production of this film! Especially since this film was produced during the lifetime of many of this blog's readers!
The scenes of Big Mama, and later, the other birds, meeting Tod are animated by Jerry Rees and John Musker. Between these is a short section with the other birds and Big Mama animated by Cliff Nordberg. A few close-ups of Tod are by Lorna Pomeroy(-Cook).
ReplyDeleteThe next section is where the birds draw Widow Tweed outside so she can find Tod. Most of the scenes of the Widow and the birds are animated by Gary Goldman, with a few scenes of the Widow by Don Bluth. Close-ups of Tod are assigned to Ed Gombert.
Inside the house, Don Bluth animates Tweed and Lorna Pomeroy animates Tod... with one shot of the three birds outside the window by Chuck Harvey.
The last section is of Amos Slade bringing Copper home and introducing him to Chief. The two dogs are animated by Randy Cartwright and Slade by Dale Oliver.
Incidental scenes: the mother fox by Glen Keane, a distant view of birds scattering by Darrell Van Citters and a wide shot of Slade in his truck by vehicle specialist Dick Lucas (see also 101 Dalmatians, The Rescuers).